Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding in Development: Lessons for Practitioners (Toolkit Launch)

Feb 24, 2014 | USAID, Global Sustainability and Resilience Program, and Middle East Program
Woodrow Wilson Center

Join us for the launch of USAID’s Water and Conflict Toolkit for Programming, a document designed to help development practitioners gain a deeper understanding of the forces driving violence and instability related to water. Written by USAID’s Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation, the Wilson Center, and Group W Inc., the toolkit provides guidance to development professionals not familiar with water and conflict dynamics, with the aim of developing more strategic and focused interventions.

To discuss how the toolkit resonates with their experiences is a bevy of water experts: Gidon Bromberg, 2008 TIME Magazine Environmental Hero and two-time recipient of the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship; Geoffrey Dabelko, Director of the Voinovich School's Environmental Studies Program at Ohio University and Senior Advisor to ECSP; Chris Kosnik, director of USAID’s Office of Water and a long-time development practitioner; Sandra Ruckstuhl, co-author of the toolkit and development and conflict expert; and Aaron Wolf, a renowned expert on transboundary water resources and political conflict and cooperation.

Panelists will discuss what needs further investigation to inform this kind of programmatic strategy, the challenges in this field of study, and how the toolkit addresses those shortfalls.